Yesterday wrapped up a 4 day math conference filled with incredibly inspirational speakers and presenters. I now have a notebook full of ideas, lessons, and activities that I can use in my classroom for the upcoming year and enough enthusiasm to fill a football stadium. I was also able to have some amazing math content and practice conversations with other teachers from my district including elementary teachers. I get very little contact with them during the school year as a high school teacher. Overall, it was an amazing experience from top to bottom.
But here is my question...I have so much information and so many great ideas, how do I share them without overwhelming the rest of the math department (11 other teachers) but also getting them to buy in to trying something new? All ideas welcome!
On the last day, during a debriefing session, with the entire group that went to the conference, our math coordinator asked us to come up with an action plan. What will we do to share this information with our department/buildings, as well as help cultivate and grow our ideas. This is what we came up with for the high school:
1. Have a math movie night, maybe outside of school, during which we watch Dan Meyer's NCTM 2016 keynote. If you haven't seen it, it's really inspiring.
2. Create a department goal around one of the mathematical practices by coming up with a common definition and action steps.
3. Meeting as a PD group once per month to focus on the mathematical practice goal and trying new ideas in our classes.
It will be very easy to start the school year implementing all of the cool things that I have learned and focusing on the above goals. The hard part will be to maintain. I am glad there was another high school teacher there with me; we can work together to keep each other accountable. Either way, I am really excited about the upcoming school year. So much so that I have been having trouble sleeping lately because as I mentioned in a early post, all my best ideas come at night!
But here is my question...I have so much information and so many great ideas, how do I share them without overwhelming the rest of the math department (11 other teachers) but also getting them to buy in to trying something new? All ideas welcome!
On the last day, during a debriefing session, with the entire group that went to the conference, our math coordinator asked us to come up with an action plan. What will we do to share this information with our department/buildings, as well as help cultivate and grow our ideas. This is what we came up with for the high school:
1. Have a math movie night, maybe outside of school, during which we watch Dan Meyer's NCTM 2016 keynote. If you haven't seen it, it's really inspiring.
2. Create a department goal around one of the mathematical practices by coming up with a common definition and action steps.
3. Meeting as a PD group once per month to focus on the mathematical practice goal and trying new ideas in our classes.
It will be very easy to start the school year implementing all of the cool things that I have learned and focusing on the above goals. The hard part will be to maintain. I am glad there was another high school teacher there with me; we can work together to keep each other accountable. Either way, I am really excited about the upcoming school year. So much so that I have been having trouble sleeping lately because as I mentioned in a early post, all my best ideas come at night!
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